Dean Heller's extreme makeover

Two years ago, Sen. Dean Heller voted twice for the Ryan budget. Earlier this month, he declared it “not serious” and said he’s “absolutely open to revenue.”

Five months ago, the Nevada Republican held a key campaign rally at a Las Vegas gun shop to bolster his Second Amendment chops. Now he’s leaning toward support for universal background checks despite objections from the National Rifle Association.

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And for years as a northern Nevada congressman, he flatly rejected anything more than a meager guest worker program for some undocumented workers, voting against the DREAM Act. At last month’s State of the Union, when President Barack Obama declared to broad applause that “now is the time” for comprehensive immigration reform, Heller leaned over to Rep. Steven Horsford, a liberal Democrat from Las Vegas, to crow, “Looks like we got consensus on that one.”

Consensus has not been a word used often by or about Heller in Washington. But that was before he became the lone Republican senator elected in a state Obama won last year. That was also before, upon his appointment in 2011 to complete disgraced Sen. John Ensign’s term, his electorate shifted overnight from the domain of staunch, mostly white conservatives who nearly picked Sharron Angle over him in a brutal 2006 House primary to an increasingly Democratic one that is projected to be majority-minority by 2030.

“If you believe that you’re there to represent your constituents and not necessarily yourself, then it’s going to adjust,” Heller said during an interview in his office last week. “I’m asked this question a lot: ‘Do you vote based on what you think is right or what your constituents think is right?’ And I say, it just depends on the issue.”

Politicians shift their positions all the time; what’s rare about Heller is how open he is about his makeover. During his campaign last year against Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, he dove headlong from the right wing to the center.

On issue after issue — immigration, gun control, taxes, campaign finance reform, even the Affordable Care Act — his current views constitute philosophical whiplash for a politician whose House voting record was in league with the likes of former Florida Rep. Allen West.

Back in Nevada, observers believe that this is, in fact, the real Heller. The one with the 100 percent ratings from Americans for Tax Reform, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Eagle Forum, they say, was a necessary detour after his near-death experience in the 2006 race against Angle, a conservative firebrand.

Prior to that, Heller served two terms in the Nevada Assembly followed by two terms as secretary of state, tenures so moderate that top Democrats tried to convert him. In 1993, for instance, Heller was one of just five Republican assemblymen to support repeal of the state’s gay-specific sodomy law. As secretary of state, he rankled many on the right by pushing for — but failing to achieve — same-day voter registration. It was under his direction that Nevada became an early-voting pioneer.

“Maybe now he’s going back to his roots,” said Ray Hagar, a veteran political columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal who has followed Heller’s career since the 1990s. “It’s easy for him to rework those positions because I think at his core, he’s not too far off from that.”